(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for selectively separating polyurethane foam and fiber from Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR). More particularly, it relates to an apparatus and method for selectively separating polyurethane foam and fiber from ASR, which can improve a recycling rate of a scrapped vehicle.
(b) Background Art
Scrapped vehicles are generally transferred to junkyards, where their recyclable parts, hazardous liquids such as fuel and oil, and tires are collected. Engines and transmissions made of metal materials are typically disassembled for recycling. Residual bodies are transferred to a shredding facility to undergo processes such as crushing and grinding, magnetic separation, whirling separation, and screen separation. During the above procedure, valuable metals such as ferrous metals and nonferrous metals are recovered. Other residues, such as plastics, rubber, glass, and fiber that are generated during the above processes, are called Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR).
The component ratio of ASR Light Fluff generated from scrapped vehicles is represented in Table 1.
TABLE 1Weight (g)Ratio (%)RemarksMetal164.01.6Plastic4,407.044.1Ferrous/Nonferrous MetalsPVC175.01.8Bumper Cover andInterior/Chassis partLaminated393.03.9MaterialFiber1,980.019.8Carpet and MatPU Foam1,750.017.5Seat Covering, Felts, SeatFoam, and Other SpongeRubber351.03.5Weather Strip, Hose, and O/SBumperWire291.02.9Waste Wire and Copper WirePaper57.00.5General WastePaper/Wood146.01.5General Waste and NaturalWoodLoss286.02.9During Separation of materials,DirtTotal10000.0100.0
In 2008, the Korean Act on Resource Circulation of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Vehicles was enforced. The Act mandated an 85 percent recycling ratio with respect to the weight of a scrapped vehicle, and further required reporting to the government whether the recycling ratio was achieved.
As shown Table 1, ASR Light Fluff includes various materials such as metal, plastic, PVC, fiber, rubber, wire, paper, and wood. In order to meet the requirement of the recycling ratio of about 85%, shredding facilities are spending a lot of time and money to separate ASR. Typical separation apparatuses have a limitation in separating materials such as metals and plastics from residues that are mixtures. Also, since equipment for separating other residues by material type is absent, most residues from scrapped vehicles are simply buried or incinerated.
For example, vehicles include a fiber content of about 23 kg per vehicle. However, because there is no apparatus to selectively separate fiber from vehicles, about 11,500 tons of fiber is discarded annually.
Also, while fiber is manually separated by some facilities, the efficiency of manually separating polyurethane foam and fiber is low, and requires a considerable amount of time to collect the fiber. Accordingly, most polyurethane foam and fiber is currently incinerated.
Furthermore, it is difficult to obtain a high purity target material (i.e. separated material) due to contamination and mixture with other materials such as glass or dirt.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.